CHAPTER NINE
PERFECT. Not only had Signe lost her mind, she couldn’t even escape this stupid town. Round and round she went, driving through narrow side roads, past graffitied buildings, vacant lots, and the occasional palm tree, looking for the highway.
If only she’d paid just a little attention to the route she’d taken following Orion instead of the way Ham had his arm hooked around her waist. The feel of his legs against hers.
The sense that she could have this—all of it—if she played it right.
Or not. Because her brains, instead of her heart, kept reminding her that the second after she gave Ham the real drive, she had nothing. No leverage to prove she was telling the truth.
Convince the CIA Good Guys that she wasn’t a terrorist wheedling her way back into her country.
Hello, black site holding facility.
And while her heart said she could trust the one man who hadn’t given up on her, her head said that the CIA Bad Guys still wanted their hands on the drive. On her.
Worse, Aggie was caught in the middle.
Nope.
She needed to get away. Regroup.
Figure out how to get Aggie back and to safety.
She might have panicked a little bit when Ham’s words bounced down the hallway toward her last night at the school. She’d been minding her own business, taking care of survivors, and out of the darkness heard . . .
“You need to get that list from her. That’s the mission.”
“I know.”
“Before she runs.”
“I know.”
His words were a searing red poker to the heart.
Ham might have at least tried a smidgen to hide the fact that he knew she’d betray him.
Okay, maybe she deserved that. Because here she was, doing exactly that.
Although, admittedly, not well.
She bit back a word as she turned down yet another narrow, nameless street. Past ochre-colored stucco two-story homes with pink bougainvillea spilling off the balconies. Past gated gardens, their walls blanketed with ivy. Past boys kicking a soccer ball in a vacant lot and a fenced olive grove.
The place felt so untouched by the chaos forty miles to the north, it almost felt surreal.
As if she were trapped in suburbia.
And worse, her heart kept shouting at her. Go back.
Nope.
Because the second she gave the drive to Ham, he’d pass it off to Isaac White. She’d even asked him—twice.
And then . . . well, everything she’d sacrificed for the past decade would be for nothing.
Stupid Ham. He’d almost talked her into a happy ending. Made her believe, for a split second, they might go home and live as a family.
The highway rose ahead when she turned onto another street.
Hooyah.
She gunned the engine, turned—
The road dead ended at a parking garage, a stone wall between her and the highway.
Yeah, that felt right.
She turned the Vespa around.
This was the plotline of her life. Flee, run into a dead end, get trapped . . .
Hide.
Hide and forget and—
She sped down the way she came, but just as she turned the corner, the Vespa sputtered, jerked her forward.
She gunned it, and it sputtered again.
Oh no . . . no . . .
And of course, it died, right there next to a couple of old, rusted Fiats.
Her brain might have also reminded her not to test fate when she was up against Ham. She knew what side she landed on.
Maybe she should start looking over her shoulder for a hurricane. Hail. An epic blizzard.
Or maybe Martin and his thugs, having survived the apocalypse, could suddenly show up to give her a lift.
Signe got off the Vespa and refrained from kicking it. Clearly she shouldn’t have been so flippant about having enough gas.
Now what? She scrubbed her hands down her grimy face. Think, Sig!
She thought she remembered seeing a gas station down one of the side streets, maybe.
Or she could boost one of these beaters . . .
She peered into the grimy window of a Volkswagen. Too late—wires hung from under the steering column.
Except, all she could hear were Ham’s words—“We can’t live in the what-ifs, Sig. We have to live in the now. The fact that we have a second chance.”
Sorry. She didn’t live in the same “it’ll all work out” world Ham inhabited. In her world, people didn’t shake off their sins, didn’t get do-overs. Didn’t return home to build successful, multimillion-dollar businesses.
They fought. Hated. Died.
And if they didn’t, they lived with the dark scars.
The rumble of a car’s engine made her look up. A tiny red Fiat covered in dust, the fender dented. She climbed to her feet and raised her hand. Maybe the driver could point her to a gas station and . . . oh goody.
She had nowhere to run as the car stopped and Ham stepped out of the driver’s side.
He shut the door. Looked at the Vespa.
“I ran out of gas.”
His mouth made a tight line as he nodded, as if it might be expected.
Then he pulled out the jump drive, held it on his palm. “Did you swipe this from the school?”
“I found it in one of the teacher classrooms.”
He looked away from her, and it looked as if his eyes glistened.
“How did you find me?”
“Really? That’s the big question here?”
She lifted a shoulder.
“Fine.” He advanced toward her and she stiffened, backed up.
His eyes widened. “Seriously. You think I would hurt you?”
His tone burned through her, but, “I don’t know. Would you?”
“Check your leg pocket.”
What? She slid her hand down to her other zippered leg pocket.
His cell phone. The one she used last night for a flashlight. She hadn’t returned it.
“I called my communications officer and she was able to ping my GPS.”
She opened the pocket and felt like an idiot as she handed him back the phone.
He took it, rubbing his thumb over the case. “So, were you playing me the entire time, or just for the past twelve hours?”
She folded her arms. “I tried the truth. You didn’t listen.”
“Try me again. I’m all ears. You can even use the big words if you want.”
“It’s so easy for you, isn’t it? Everything is black and white. You show up and I’m supposed to fall into your arms like you’re my savior—”
“Husband.”
“Ex-husband.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I don’t need you.”
He took a breath.
“I don’t. I survived on my own for ten years, with my daughter—”
“Our daughter.”
“You’re not hearing me. If I give this information to the wrong people, I have nothing to prove I’m not lying.”
He folded his arms.
“Nothing to protect Aggie. Or you.”
“I don’t—”
“Nothing to prove that I haven’t wasted my entire life!”
Shoot. That wasn’t supposed to come out. But Ham had this way of loosening the dark secrets from her soul. Even now, he just stared at her, unmoving, and she ached to pour out everything.
The years of abuse, of fear, of longing, of regrets.
The fact that she longed to go home almost as much as she feared it.
How could this man possibly want her after all she’d done?
Sometimes she hated how calm he could be when her entire life was splitting at the seams. “Say something!”
“What do you want me to say? Yes, you wasted your life?”
He could have slapped her with less effect.
“You’re a jerk.”
“And you stole ten years of my daughter’s life from me and gave it to a terrorist.” His jaw tightened. “Sorry. I told myself I wouldn’t say that.”
But she had backed away, her hand up. “I knew it. You were all, ‘I’ll forgive her’ and ‘We’re together now,’ but I was right, Ham. There’s not a hope we can put this back together. Because deep down, you hate me.”
He swallowed, shook his head, but she held up her hand.
“Yes, you do. That’s why you came to Italy, isn’t it? So you could face me and tell me that I hurt you. That I was wrong. What do you want to hear, Ham, that I regret my life?”
“Okay, yes. How about this—how about that you regret leaving me. You regret taking my daughter. You regret breaking every single promise you made to me.”
His tone had turned lethal.
She knew he had it in him.
“Nice. See, that’s the real truth between us, Ham.” She shook her head, started to walk past him. “We haven’t a hope of fixing this.”
He put his hand on her arm. “Sig—”
She yanked out of his grasp. “Don’t touch me.”
He held up his hands. “Fine. Give me the jump drive and I’ll leave you alone.”
“No.”
“Signe! I promise nothing bad is going to happen to you, or Aggie, or—”
“You’re so obtuse! You don’t get it—”
“Help me get it!” And now, finally, Ham was shouting. His eyes shone, his jaw tight, his chest rising and falling.
“Fine. You’re in bed with a traitor.”
He recoiled. “I—what?”
“Isaac White.”
He stared at her, as if trying to wrap his mind around her words. “What?”
“Isaac White, and more specifically, his running mate, Senator Jackson, are traitors.”
“You’re—”
“Crazy. Yeah, or a terrorist, according to your friend Orion, but I know what I know.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What do you know?” He folded his arms, stepped back.
“Jackson is the one who came to Tsarnaev’s camp. She’s the traitor.”
A beat. Ham blew out a breath. “And you’re sure it was her?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. And, brace yourself—that’s how Tsarnaev got the NOC list.”
Ham sat down on the stone wall. “You think a US senator gave away national secrets?”
“Sold them.”
He ran a hand over his forehead.
“I’m telling the truth—”
“I believe you.”
The words ripped her breath from her chest. “What?”
“I believe you.”
Stupid, forbidden tears burned her eyes. No, no— “You do?”
“Of course I do. Sig— I know you, or I did. You might hide the truth. Even run from the truth. Even betray me without looking back. But you’re not lying.”
“You knew I wasn’t coming back with you?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I wanted to believe that, but yes.” He met her eyes.
And it nearly felled her, the look of hurt in his gaze.
“Sit down. Tell me what you think is going on.” He didn’t reach out to her, though. Just folded his arms, his face grim.
She sat down next to him. “I did some research—”
“Of course you did.”
“Jackson was on the Senate Armed Services Committee, so she probably had oversight of anti-terrorism activities. It probably wouldn’t have been impossible for her to get a copy of the list.”
“But why give it to Tsarnaev?” Ham asked.
“I don’t know. Like I said—maybe to secure his services.”
“Like the destabilization of Russia? But why?”
She ran her palms on her pants. “I think some of her humanitarian aid organizations are cover for arms dealing.”
He just looked at her. “Senator Jackson is a weapons trafficker?”
“I know it sounds crazy! It’s just a theory. Or, maybe she’s after the presidency. Or maybe . . .”
“White is in on it.”
She nodded.
“Oh Sig. That’s—”
“Treason. And now you know why I can’t go home. Because if White is in on it, then if he becomes president, my accusation is treasonous.”
“White can be trusted, Sig. I served with the man. I know him. He’s a patriot.”
“I want to agree with you. But even if he’s not mixed up in this, Jackson is. And she knows me and what I’ve done.”
He looked at her.
“She’s the one who gave me the mission to track Tsarnaev.”
“What?”
“She’s the reason I embedded with him. And when Jackson arrived at the camp . . . I thought it was to see me. But she didn’t even talk to me. And Pavel didn’t let me out of my room and . . . I started to wonder if maybe she’d been using me all this time to get in with him. She’d given him a CIA operative and earned his trust.”
“You think Tsarnaev knew you were an operative?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s why he didn’t kill me when he got the list. My name was on it, and I feared he’d see it—but maybe he already knew.”
“You think maybe he was using you too? Giving you false information?”
“Or maybe the right information to the wrong people—I don’t know. I just know that Jackson is up to something, and White chose her for his running mate.”
Ham took a breath. “Research.”
“I’m a chronic insomniac.”
He uncrossed his arms, and for a moment, she thought he might take her hand.
Stupidly wished it, really, her heart peeking out to take over her brains.
Nope.
He got up, turned to look at her. “Okay, listen. I can’t make you trust me, but I promise you, we’re going to figure this out.”
“Ham. Think. The CIA is going to meet me at the airport and that’s it. I’m chained to a wall eating soft foods in a black site until the end of my days.”
“I’d find you.” He said it without a smile, his tone cold.
Oh. Okay. And there went her heart again, leaping up to say Listen, you idiot.
He held out his hand. “Signe, give me the jump drive.”
“I’ll give it to you when we land in America.”
He studied her. “Okay.”
“Really? Just like that?”
“If we’re going to be married, then we need to start trusting each other. I’ll go first.”
“We’re not married, Ham.”
“Stop overthinking things, Sig. I don’t have a hidden agenda. Whenever you just can’t see a way out, you panic. Then you run and hide and I have to climb up into the tree fort and talk you down. Or keep you from packing up the dog and taking off down the Mississippi in a stolen dinghy.”
“You knew I was running away?”
“Best friend.”
And she couldn’t contradict him.
“Why do you keep showing up?” she asked softly.
“That’s how I’m built.”
Yes, he was.
“Fine. What now?”
“We go to the base, talk to the commanding officer, and get a lift home.”
Oh boy.
“And then we see our daughter.”
The man was a sniper with his words. And there she was, nearly crying again. Sheesh.
“Aw, Shorty. I told you that you weren’t alone anymore.”
That’s what she was afraid of.
Then Ham reached out and pulled her to himself, wrapping his arms around her.
She closed her eyes, wanting to resist.
But shoot, the man had powers beyond hers. She sank into him.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and she stepped away as he answered it. “Ham here.”
His intake of breath stopped her heart in her chest. Especially when his eyes met hers, widening.
But his voice was steely cool. “We’ll be right there.”
He hung up.
“What is it?”
She’d seen him snap into warrior mode before—but now he wore something akin to fury on his face.
“Orion’s in trouble. Apparently, your friends from Germany are waiting for you. And they’re going to kill Orion, Jenny, and our Italian friends if we don’t bring them the list.”
See? The cosmos hated her. “What are we going to do?”
His phone vibrated again. He looked at it and smiled. Looked back at her. “Do you trust me, Sig?”
She cocked her head.
“It’s now or never. Give me the list.”
She drew in a breath. Then she reached into her pocket and handed over her life into his palm. “Don’t get me killed.”
Jenny saw the look on Orion’s face and knew . . . they were going to die.
They would die and Orion would never know the reason why she told him no. Told him no and broke his heart. Told him no and nearly lost him to a tsunami because they weren’t together.
And now she was going to lose him to the thugs who’d broken into Gio’s mother’s apartment.
Mostly because Orion didn’t go down easily.
Two big men simply broke down Luna’s door—the metal one probably left open after Ham tore out of here. And in that moment, Orion had changed from the rescuer she knew to the warrior he’d trained to be.
And to think, for a whole minute she thought everything was going to be okay. At least for them. For Ham . . . oh, poor Ham.
He’d paced the small house as he got ahold of Scarlett, who in turn contacted a hacker friend, and together they pinpointed Ham’s GPS.
Jenny had never seen him quite so undone, and Ham didn’t unravel easily.
Luna gave him her car keys, then set on a kettle to boil.
Apparently, they were having tea.
Orion got back on the phone with Scarlett then, and Jenny heard him talking about their friend Jake, and arranging a ride home, and then she was listening to Gio tell his mother about the earthquake, tsunami, and his big adventures. She made out a few of the Italian words, including nonno—grandfather.
They needed to get to the base and send help to the school.
Right about then, the men came through the door.
They were tall and nondescript and when they shouted at her and Orion, she thought it might be in Russian, but it could be Ukrainian, or even Polish. Maybe Chechen?
She got the gist of their words, however.
Hands up.
She obeyed.
Not Orion, of course.
He dropped his phone just as one of them rushed him. The man put a fist in Orion’s gut, bent him over, and slammed him into the wall.
Jenny screamed as the second man advanced on her. She took a step between her and Luna and Gio. “Stay back!”
The third man through the door looked American. A scar traced his forehead, looking relatively fresh, and he wore a suit. As if he might be the one in charge.
Orion rebounded, rolled, and sent his fist into his attacker’s ear.
He howled, and Orion got behind him and cranked his arm around his neck.
The man tried to headbutt him, but Orion held on. Smaller but wiry, he hooked his legs around the Russian’s waist, wearing him down.
Until Russian thug number two jumped in. He pulled Orion off, then hit him so hard Orion spun and hit the bookshelf, fell against a table, broke a lamp.
Then the man aimed a kick at Orion’s knee, and he hit the floor.
The thug stood over him, grabbed his shirt, pulled back his fist.
“No!” Jenny took off and launched herself onto the Russian holding Orion. He elbowed her in the gut and she fell off, but rolled and picked up the broken lamp. Swung it at the first thug, now finding his breath.
Luna screamed.
“Stop! Or I kill the kid!”
Jenny froze.
Gio had run at the closest man with a kitchen knife. Now, the man had Gio around the neck, a gun to his head. He’d dropped the knife.
Orion had found his feet, picked up a shard of the lamp, and gone after the Russian. Blood dripped down Orion’s face, his lip broken, his nose bleeding.
For a second, no one breathed. They just stood there looking at each other, and then Orion dropped the lamp shard and put his hands up. “Don’t hurt him.”
Gio was kicking at the man, so the American pushed his head against the wall and shoved his gun against his spine. “I said stop.”
“Don’t move, Gio,” Orion said.
Maybe it was the calm in his voice, but Gio stilled, just a whimper emerging from him now.
Luna stood frozen, her hands glued over her mouth.
Orion shot a look at Jenny. “It’ll be okay,” he mouthed. Or at least that’s what she thought he said. Maybe it was just her heart hoping the words.
“Get down on your knees, both of you,” the American said.
Orion obeyed, and that’s when she noticed his wince. She caught his tiny groan as he went down.
She got down beside him, her heart pulsing in her throat. He was really hurt.
“Who are you?” Orion said.
“Where’s the woman?” the man said.
Orion looked at Jenny, back at the American, and raised an eyebrow. “What woman?”
“The one you came to find. The woman married to Hamilton Jones.”
“Oh, that woman,” cheeky Orion said. “Hate to tell you, but she’s gone. Ditched us. Buh-bye.”
He was making the man angry. What was his game?
The man said something to the Russians, and one stepped up and picked up Orion’s cell phone.
“Call him,” the American said. The Russian held out the phone to Orion.
“Call who?” Orion asked nicely.
“Your boss. Jones.”
“He’s not going to answer.”
“If he doesn’t, she’s dead.” And he turned the gun to Jenny.
Orion took a breath, and all the fun and games vanished from his face. He looked at her, and she saw his words in his eyes—everything he’d said on the roof last night, when he’d found her. “I love you and I don’t have to marry you—we can just . . . whatever you want.”
“I want you.” She’d said it then, and she meant it now as she stared back at him.
“I’ll do it,” Orion said quietly.
“Make it snappy,” the American said.
Orion dialed. Waited. It must have gone to voicemail because, “Ham. It’s me, Orion. So, some friends are here looking for Signe. Do you suppose you could come back around when you get done with whatever you’re doing? Perfect.”
He hung up. “We’re all set.”
The man spoke again to the Russian and he ripped the phone from Orion’s hand.
The American checked the phone. Looked up at Orion.
Then he took the gun off Jenny and advanced to Orion, pressed the gun to his forehead.
“Who did you call?”
“My boss.”
The American hit him across the face.
Jenny closed her eyes.
When she opened them, the man was scrolling down Orion’s speed dial contacts. He pressed a number and handed the phone to Jenny. “Let’s try again. And no funny stuff because I promise, I’ll shoot him right here, right now—”
“Fine!” She grabbed the phone. The man had put it on speaker, and Ham’s voice came on the line. “Ham here.”
She kept her voice even. “The guys that are after Signe are here. They want the list. Can you come back?”
He didn’t even hesitate, his voice cool. Quintessential Ham.
“We’ll be right there.” He hung up.
The man swiped the phone from Jenny’s grip. “On the floor, both of you, face down.”
She lay flat, and a foot came down between her shoulder blades. Hands pulled her arms back.
Her wrists were taped, and she turned her head and saw that the other thug was doing the same to Orion. His face was to hers.
Orion’s breathing was even, as if he was thinking, but all she could think about was the fact that he’d never know. She’d never told him why she’d broken his heart.
Last night simply hadn’t been the right time. Not with rescuing people from the coffee shop, taking care of Marcello, finding the school, and then of course Ham arrived and there was the joy of knowing that he hadn’t perished. None of it felt like the right time to talk to Orion, to say the words that might derail their future.
She wanted a quiet moment. A moment when he could ask her questions and she could tell him the whole story. And then tell him that he could walk away if he needed to. But at least he would know that she loved him.
Now. She had to tell him before . . . well, before Ham arrived and who knew what happened. “Orion.”
The men had stepped away to tie up Luna and Gio.
“Orion.”
He was looking right at her so she didn’t actually need his attention. She just had to figure out how to say the rest. She cut her voice low. “I need to tell you something.”
He just looked at her, clearly listening.
Okay. Deep breath. “I know I should have told you, but . . . okay, so when I was nineteen years old I met a guy who—never mind. The short of it is that I had an abortion. And when I did . . .” She swallowed. He hadn’t even blinked. “I’m not sure I can have kids. And I just didn’t want you to marry me without knowing that because you love kids and—”
“Shut up over there!”
Jenny closed her mouth.
Orion was just staring at her. Didn’t frown. Didn’t add a look of concern or disgust or even anger. Just stared.
Then, quietly, “When I tell you, I need you to roll away and get small, okay?”
Huh?
“Just wait for my signal.”
Um . . . “Okay.”
“I said shut up!” The American came over and kicked Orion, right in the face.
Jenny screamed. “Stop!”
He ignored her. One of the Russians grabbed Orion’s collar and moved him away from her, shoved him against the sofa.
Orion sat there, his back against the sofa, his knees up, his warrior face on.
And did not look at her.
Not even once for the next twenty minutes as they waited in silence.
That’s when she decided to actually use her head—stop worrying about herself and start figuring out how she could get them out of this mess.
She had no idea what was going on with Orion, but he seemed to be disconnected from the world. Clearly he’d taken a severe hit to the head with that kick.
Oh, God, make me brave. “My name is Jenny,” she said quietly. “What’s yours?”
She wasn’t talking to the Russians, of course, but the American, and he looked at her and smiled.
“Martin,” he said, surprising her, really.
“You’re an American,” she said, not a question.
“I am.”
“So, I don’t understand. We’re Americans too. What’s going on?”
He picked up a chair and sat down, leaned his arms against the back of the chair.
“Well, here’s the problem, Jenny. You’re working with a rogue CIA agent who has sensitive information, and we’ve been tracking her across Europe trying to secure it. She keeps eluding us. We tracked her to this house and realized that the only way we were going to get close to her is to ask her to come to us.”
“Us too!” Jenny said. “We’re clearly on your side. Just let us go.”
Martin shook his head. “Sorry. We don’t know who to trust. We’ll get the information, take you back to the US, and you can sort it out with the CIA.”
Jenny glanced at Orion. He still hadn’t moved.
She looked back at Martin. “There’s been some misunderstanding. We were sent here by the CIA to retrieve the very information that you’re talking about. So, like I said, we’re on the same side.”
Martin got up and looked to be walking away.
Jenny closed her eyes. Think negotiation techniques. Empathize with him. Make him believe you’re on his side. She opened her eyes. “I’m not actually in the CIA but I can imagine it’s really hard to be able to trust people.”
Martin turned around. Folded his arms and rested his hip against the kitchen table. “You think so?”
“I used to be a profiler in Afghanistan. My job was to vet our sources. But sometimes that’s not easy, is it? I got it wrong once and it cost lives.”
Martin raised an eyebrow.
“It’s hard to have so many lives at stake. You can’t afford to get things wrong.”
Martin studied her.
“What if you’re wrong about this informant?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Martin said. “She killed her husband and another man on a boat in the Mediterranean. And she left two of my men dead in Germany. She’s lived the last ten years in a terrorist training camp. I don’t think we can trust her.”
She hadn’t known all that about Signe. Just knew that Ham trusted her. Loved her.
Maybe he didn’t know.
“What are you going to do with us after she comes back and after you get the list?”
Martin stood up and went to the window, looked out. “I told you we’re going to bring you back to the US.”
He was lying. Classic technique—don’t look at the person while delivering the lie, and they can’t see your telltale eye shift.
Stay steady, Jen.
“So you’re going to kill me and Orion. I get that. What about that boy right there?” She looked at Gio. “He’s done nothing. You’re just going to kill them and walk away?”
Martin glanced at Gio, who was tied up with his mother, and lifted his shoulder.
Deep breath. “What if you let them go right now. Put them in the back bedroom? They don’t speak English. They don’t know what’s going on.”
Martin shook his head.
C’mon, Jenny. You can do better than this. She was a licensed psychologist. Knew how to counsel, even interrogate people.
Orion still wasn’t moving.
“You know it’s going to cause a ruckus when you shoot us. Orion is not going to go down easily, you’ve already seen that.”
And maybe she shouldn’t have said that because that’s when Orion came out of his catatonic state for a moment. She couldn’t decipher the look he gave her.
Then he looked away again, head down. At least his nose seemed to have stopped gushing.
“Listen, you come at us and we’re all going to start screaming. You can’t kill us all at the same time. People will hear you. But if you let Luna and Gio go, Orion and I will sit here quietly. We won’t make a problem when Ham returns, and we’ll tell him to give you the information. Then, we’ll let you do whatever you want to us.”
Martin looked at her.
“Put them in the back room,” she said. “By the time they get to help, you’ll be gone. And you won’t have had an international incident to clean up. Just us Americans. Isn’t that what you want?”
Martin glanced at Gio. Back to her. Then he said something to the Russians.
Jenny let out her breath as they walked over, grabbed Luna and Gio, and shoved them into the bathroom.
The door locked.
And maybe she and Orion would never get out of here. But at least she’d told him the truth.
Now she just had to tell him that she loved him. So, she looked at him and said, “Orion Starr, I love you. I was afraid that you wouldn’t love me because I can’t give you children. But I give you my heart. You are my hero, now and forever.”
For the second time Orion lifted his head and broke his catatonic state. He looked at her, smiled, and shouted, “Now!”
Huh?
The glass broke in the big window behind her, and she huddled into a ball as a soldier came through it. Two pops and the Russians went down. The door burst open and another soldier came in.
She got small.
But just in case she didn’t, Orion, his hands free, launched himself over her, his body encasing hers. “Stay down!”
So not catatonic, apparently. Cunning, freeing himself.
And planning some sort of stealth attack.
Martin had flipped over a table, and she saw him darting through the flat, toward the back.
One of the soldiers went after him.
The other spoke into an earpiece. “He went out the back.”
Right about then, Ham appeared in the door. “Hey!” He headed inside. “Did you get them?”
Orion rolled off her. “I need a towel. My nose is broken.”
The first soldier crouched beside her, ran his Ka-Bar under her taped hands, freeing her.
She rolled over. Looked at him, her eyes wide.
“You okay, Jenny?”
“Jake?”
Jake Silver grinned at her under his helmet. He wore head-to-toe protective gear, but his blue eyes glimmered. “That’s the last time I stay home and babysit.”
Hope was not a strategy.
But so far, it was working, and Ham wasn’t ready to abandon it quite yet.
He sat on an examination table in the medical clinic of the Sigonella Naval Air Station, his leg draped, a male physician’s assistant about to sew his leg back up.
Gio and his mother had been taken to a hospital not on base, but Lt. Shelly Hollybrook from the naval base had cleared Ham, North, Jake, Orion, and the rest of the team to be treated at the medical clinic.
Ham now sported a less-than-convenient plaster cast on his hairline-fractured wrist—something he’d call overkill.
Hooyah, his team had shown up, just like he’d trained them when he set up their private group-messaging system.
Although reading his mind hadn’t been an upgrade he thought he’d chosen.
“How’d this happen, exactly?” Jenny sat on a chair, an ice pack to her bruised rib where Igor One had sent his elbow into her side. “One second I’m on the ground, Orion is staring at the floor like his brain is scrambled, the next he’s on top of me and a handful of Rambos—”
“Ex–special operators,” Jake said from where he held up a wall with his shoulder. “We still got it.” He bumped fists with North Gunderson, who seemed in a surly mood after losing Martin in the tiny alleyways of Librino, Gio’s suburb.
That sat in Ham’s craw too.
This wasn’t over.
Signe’s words about White hadn’t helped. He needed to buy himself some time and do a little investigating.
“Blame Orion,” North said. “He’s the one who called in the text. We have a voice-to-text system that sends the message, along with a GPS location, to everyone’s phone.”
“So that’s the call he made,” Jenny said. “But—”
“We were in-country,” Jake said. “As soon as we heard about the volcano, and Scarlett couldn’t reach Ham on his cell, we got on a plane for Italy. We got to Palermo and had to drive the rest of the way. We figured even if you were okay, there might be others who needed our help.”
“And you brought weapons?” Signe said. She was standing away from them, her arms folded, staring out the window at the activities on base, as if she expected Navy MAs to kick in the door and take her down to the floor, haul her away.
Over his dead body. But the thought sat in the back of his brain, along with her words—“I’m chained to a wall eating soft foods in a black site until the end of my days.”
She hadn’t been kidding.
He hadn’t either when he told her he’d find her.
Please, let it not come to that.
But his chest still burned with the hard punch of realizing she had betrayed him.
And the fact that deep in his gut, she might be a little right. He had come to Italy to confront her.
And maybe a part of him did hate her for choosing the mission over him.
He shook the thought away. “We always bring tactical weapons.”
“On a commercial flight?”
“Who said we went commercial?” North said. He leaned up from the wall. “I’m going to call Selah, tell her we’re okay.” He patted Jake on the shoulder as if that might atone for the fact that North was dating Jake’s kid sister.
“You own a plane?” Signe said, looking at Ham.
“No. But we have a contract with a private charter company when we need it.”
“Chief, this is going to hurt,” said the petty officer. Ham looked at him. Young guy, blond hair worn high and tight. Blue eyes, and manners. Wore the name Samuels on his badge.
“Do it,” Ham said and looked away as Samuels administered a needle of novocaine.
“I need to debride the wound a little—there’s a bit of an infection.”
“Blame the water. And by the way, did you guys get the location of the school?” He directed his attention to Jake.
“Orion is taking care of it right now,” Jake said. He looked at Jenny. “He tells me you were amazing. Talked the guy into letting the family go.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “There might have been some panic. And Orion was playing stupid.”
“Listening. Waiting for us to get into place,” Jake said. “He gave the signal for us to come in.”
“Oh. That’s what that was.” She gave a laugh that didn’t sound anything like humor.
“You okay, Jen?” Ham said.
“How about if I get you something to eat,” Jake said.
“I’m good, I’m just . . . okay, a coffee sounds good.” She followed Jake from the room.
Then it was just Ham and Signe and Samuels, quietly sewing up his wound.
Maybe the PA had something for the bitter ache inside.
“Signe. You still with me here?”
She turned, her lips tight. Lifted a shoulder. “Where else am I going to go.”
“Nice, Sig.”
She didn’t answer him. Turned away.
Four hours later, she still hadn’t looked at him as they boarded the chartered jet. She sat down in the padded leather chair, running her hands over the armrests.
He took the seat next to her, not sure why, but maybe just because he couldn’t leave it alone.
He wasn’t the bad guy here.
“Signe, you okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Super.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you, I promise.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said. “How did you get the plane here?”
“The wind shifted, and my pilot was able to get in. But we need to leave now if we want to get out before it shifts again.”
“Do these fancy seats go back?”
He indicated an electronic pull on her armrest.
She put the seat down, grabbed her pillow, and curled up, her back to him.
“The only easy day was yesterday,” Jake said as he sat down across the aisle from him.
Ham looked at him. “Yesterday was off the hook. Today’s not much better.”
“It’s a little better. I scored you a grape soda from the nurse’s stand.” Jake reached into his backpack and pulled it out. “Get some shut-eye. Tomorrow is a new day.”
“When we land, it’ll still be today.”
“That bad, huh?” Jake nodded toward Signe and her less than friendly posture.
Ham looked at her. “I got a plan.”
“Of course you do.” Jake pulled out his pillow as the plane began to cycle up.
At least the private plane had more leg room, but Ham couldn’t wait to put his seat back. Orion sat ahead of him, beside Jenny, a pillow under his head, his nose taped, his knee under ice.
North and the rest of the team had taken the back seats, stretched out.
The captain came on and prepped them for takeoff. Ham stared out the window as they left the runway, the plane rising above the Catania-Fontanarossa airport.
In the distance, Etna still spit lava, a great cloud of black ash hovering above, raining down its slopes. Streams of red lava dug trenches into the hillside, scarring the terrain as it seeped death into the villages below.
It would take a lifetime for them to recover, if at all.
Signe stirred, punched her pillow, and fell back to sleep as they flew into the clouds and left the destruction behind.